My farewell to Azpeitia

I ended td previous blog with 'getting out the door to go to Kew Gardens' - we didn't go there because there were dark clouds looming and sure enough, before long it was raining.Instead we went to a Matisse exhibition at the Tate Modern, then chilled out at Sam and Mikes' new flat in Soho and that night we went to see the extremely popular musical 'The Book of Mormon'.

The Matisse exhibition was fantastic. I'm totally unknowledgeable about art, artists and related things so I didn't know anything about Matisse or his art and didn't have any idea about what I was going to see.

What I saw was amazing. All the exhibitions were from his 'cutting period' from how his cut out shapes evolved from being a precurser to a painting to becoming an art form in its own right. His work called 'Jazz' was there along with 'The Snail' both of which are apparently famous. The four of us thought that it was one of the best exhibitions that we've seen, not that I've seen a lot but Sam and Emma certainly have

But, I'm getting ahead of things - my final week in Azpeitia was indeed a week of goodbyes - to all the people i've come to know, to the teachers and hundreds of students, to the bars I frequented (understand that bars here are very different from the bars in NZ)  and the people working in them who were always friendly, the buildings, the river, my apartment - it was one hell of a tiring week. Also, a sad one because this was the end of my Spanish experience and all that that entailed. Miren and her partner, whose name I know and can pronounce but cannot spell, took Barry and I and our luggage to San Sebastian to get the bus to Zaragoza and off we went. 

Here's some photos of 'my Azpeitia' 

my home away from home which is in the 2nd to last building on the right, with Xoxote behind it. 

My school

with my last class and the Basque Flag which they gave to me to bring back to NZ.  The students brought in food and we had a feast. I ate chocolate on a bread roll for the 1st time. kind of delidious and kind of sickly sweet.

part of my walk along the river to or from school, sometimes on the. left side amd sometimes on the right. I loved walking to amd from my workplace.

  My Azpeitia home away from home - Etxe Zuri where Miren works and Daviah is the cook

 inside Etxe Zuri with Miren and Oiane

 Ametsa, locally known as The Green Bar, is the bar which became 'my office' where people met me to practice their English speaking and listening.

 inside Ametsa during siesta time which is why it's looking rather empty

 Pastorkua, the bar where we had dinner most Sundays

 my internet cafe where I did almost every blog from - the internet here was always reliable and gast inlike the internet at my place.

The library

a little drop of NZ - one cabbage tree in the park at Loiola

The enormous Loiola Cathedral which has the house where San Ignatius was born inside it. Tis is about a 15 - 20 minute walk from the apartment.

looking down the river to the Loiola end of Azpeitia. I lived at the other end of the town.

the milk vending machine, the only place where we could buy fresh milk, everywhere else sold only long life milk

  A vegetable garden coming to life in spring. This garden is in front of the library. I really enjoyed being close to the gardens, river and the countryside

 one of the many 'old town' streets. This one is opposite Etxi Zuri and leads  to the Town Square

 The Friday mini market beside the town squareI couldn't gat a decent phot of the big Tuesday market because it's so big and also the stalls are covered so all I got was not much of the market or a mass of white canopies. The milk vending machine is on the other side of the square from this little market. Most Fridays I would buy delicious bread and occasionally cheese, a lettuce, tomatoes etc.

 My end of Azpeitia looking right from the bridge

and finally Azpeitia mestled among the hills of Gipuzkoa in The Basque Country

so ends my Azpeitia experience and to everyone in Azpeitia - eskerrik asko hainbeste guztia xxxx